ABOUT THE AUTHORS References Cooper, M., Gorst, L., with Pasifika Early Learning (AoKids) (2021). “Journeying” a return to wisdom: Initial impressions and reflections on leadership in Pasifika-led multicultural ECE settings. Swings & Roundabouts (December)https://digitalpublications. online/waterfordpress/swings-roundaboutssummer-21/18/ Cooper, M., & Matapo, J. (2021). Mobilising tofā sa’ili for ECE leadership: A talanoa confronting dominant conceptualisations from a Pasifika perspective. ACCESS: Contemporary Issues in Education, 41(2), 26-32. https://doi. org/10.46786/ac21.2955 Cooper, M., with Ah-Young, V. F. & Fautua, I. (2021). “Initiating” a return to wisdom: Exploring leadership in ECE through a Pasifika Indigenous lens. Swings & Roundabouts (March) https:// digitalpublications.online/waterfordpress/ swings-roundabouts-autumn-21/16/ Education Council. (2018a). Educational leadership capability framework. https://teachingcouncil. nz/assets/Files/Leadership-Strategy/ Leadership_Capability_Framework.pdf Education Council. (2018b). The leadership strategy for the teaching profession of Aotearoa New Zealand. https://teachingcouncil.nz/ professional-practice/rauhuia-leadershipspace-home/rauhuia-leadership-space/ leadership-strategy/ Education Counts. (2023a). Pivot table: Enrolments in ECE (2000-2021). https://www. educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/participation Education Counts. (2023b). Pivot Table: Number of teaching staff by ethnicity (2019-2021). https:// www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/ staffing Education Counts. (2023c). Time series data: Enrolments in ECE (2000-2020). https://www. educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/participation Kelly, D., Jackson, B., & Henare, M. (2014). “He apitihono, He tātaihono”: Ancestral leadership, cyclical learning and the eternal continuity of leadership. In R. Westwood et al. (eds.), Coreperiphery relations and organisation studies (pp. 164-184). MacMillan Publishers. Ministry of Education. (2018). Tapasā: Cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners. https://teachingcouncil.nz/assets/ Files/Tapasa/Tapasa-Cultural-CompetenciesFramework-for-Teachers-of-PacificLearners-2019.pdf Ministry of Education. (2021). Education indicator. Education and learning outcomes: Early learning. https://wwweducationcounts.govt. nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/208713/EarlyLearning-Participation-Oct-2021-IndicatorReport.pdf Ministry for Pacific Peoples. (2020). Pacific Aotearoa status report: A snapshot. https:// www.mpp.govt.nz/assets/Reports/PacificPeoples-in-Aotearoa-Report.pdf Sinclair, A. (2007). Going back. Leadership for the disillusioned. In Moving beyond myths and heroes to leading that liberates (pp. 57-74). Allen & Unwin. Teaching Council of Aotearoa. (2023). FAQs: Tapasā. https://teachingcouncil.nz/resourcecentre/tapasa/tapasa-resources/ Togiaso, J. (2021). Visionary women: Sustaining the language and culture in Samoan early childhood centres. Early Childhood Folio, 25(2), 9-13. https://doi.org/10.18296/ecf.0096 Maria Cooper is co-Associate Dean Pacific and a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work. She researches and teaches on educational leadership, early years curriculum, Pasifika learners, and infant-toddler pedagogies. She has Samoan and Slovakian heritage, enjoys time out with her husband and three children, and was born, raised, and still lives in central Auckland. Louise Gorst is a professional teaching fellow at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work. She teaches on a range of courses, and researches leadership, leader identity, and teachers’ influence and leadership of curriculum and pedagogy in ECE. Louise is an experienced, fully certificated teacher and mentor. She has connections with English and Irish ancestry and has lived in Auckland all her life. Louise enjoys spending quality time with her husband and two children. vital to leading in the present. Nearly every participant referred back to life with family, elders, and community when sharing their understandings, practices, and experiences of leadership. In the literature, the concept of leadership has a long history but it is often studied as an ahistorical concept, that is, without looking back to one’s personal backgrounds, histories, and connections (Sinclair, 2007). Yet, Indigenous communities often make sense of leadership as a cultural and spiritual process, which involves embracing and carrying the values passed on from parents, grandparents, and the ancestors into their work and ways of leading (Kelly et al., 2014). It was clear to us that our participants embraced and carried their family and ancestral values, stories, and ways of leading with them in to their everyday work. This idea that leadership carries traces of the cultural and spiritual past concurs with Kelly et al.’s notion of ancestral leadership, which “draws upon knowledge that is built on earlier experience and continues to reflect leadership dynamics from the bonds of ancestry by virtue of a continuous exchange between three realities: the human, the cosmos and the divine” (p. 165). Closing thoughts In closing, we believe that the leadership framework we offer in this article provides a tool that can be used to enrich leadership conditions, processes, and practices to support Pasifika children in ECE. At the very least, it may encourage other leaders and teachers to reflect on their leadership practices and ways that these practices enable Pasifika children to enjoy learning and success as Pasifika. For us, the framework means this plus much more. It is a reflection of our active resistance to the idea that culture-free notions of leadership are all that there is to know and be guided by in ECE. It is also a mark of our commitment to unsettle any notions of leadership that are at risk of being too entrenched in our education systems and to transform them so that they are (more) inclusive of Pasifika knowledge and experience, while respecting our bicultural foundations. This is in keeping with our hope for a better world for Pasifika (and all other) children in this country. March 2023 { 21 }
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